Glasswrights' Test Read Online Free PDF

door pulled the master to his feet. Three sharp raps. Of course the priest had come. The priest came every morning.
    â€œFather,” Parion said, as he opened the door.
    The young man hovered on the threshold, clad in the spring green robes that marked him as devoted to all the Thousand Gods. Not that such robes made him anything special in
    Brianta. … Half the people in the streets wore the green garments—if not the priests, then the women who served them, the caloyas who made certain that the religious colonies were provided for, wanting neither food nor clothing nor any other material thing. Elsewhere in the world, one needed to be born into the priestly caste, but here in Brianta, converts were accepted freely. Converts with money, that was—gold could pave a thousand roads.
    The priest intoned, “May the Thousand Gods bless all of your endeavors.”
    â€œAnd yours, Father,” Parion replied automatically. “May First Pilgrim Jair watch over you with favor.” Every single morning, he exchanged benisons with a representative of the church; he was awakened by their cries in the street: “Blessings of the Gods! Praise be the Gods! All sing praise to the Thousand Gods!”
    Shrugging, Parion crossed to his broad worktable, automatically fumbling for the gold coin he had set aside for the guild’s daily offering. He placed it in the priest’s outstretched hand, making a holy sign across his own chest. “Pray for us, Father. Pray for Clain to bless our glasswrights’ guild.”
    â€œIn the name of Clain,” the priest replied promptly. “May your day bring you joy and prosperity.” The priest aped the sign that Parion had made, and then he bowed his way out the door.
    The master glasswright shrugged as the latch snicked closed beneath his hand. At first, the priests’ constant begging had annoyed him, but he had grown accustomed to the Briantan tradition. After all, if he had been back in Morenia, he would have delivered gold once a week, when he gathered with all the other guildsmen for a service in the cathedral. He would have bundled up several coins, traded them for tapers to place on Clain’s altar. What difference did it make if the priest came to him, here in Brianta? What difference did it make if Parion worked his business away from the church?
    At least here, the guild owed no taxes to a king. Briantan royalty understood that it was second in importance to the church; the king did not attempt to fill his treasury from the glasswrights’ tattered pockets. No, Briantan royalty was . . . restrained. Weak.
    Things might have been different if the Briantan princess had successfully married Halaravilli—what was it?—three years before? The royal house here might have grown in prestige. But ben-Jair had scorned the woman, sent her away without ceremony before he went and found himself his spiderguild queen.
    Yet another reason for the glasswrights to stay in exile, then. There was no love lost between the ostensible rulers of Brianta and cruel Morenia. The weak Briantan king would not mind if Parion’s guild grew to power, used that power against the house of ben-Jair. Parion had watched the Briantan nobility fade in the past three years, as if the return of their princess was the final plucking of fading petals.
    As the king had weakened, religious factions had gained power throughout the city, throughout all of Brianta. Priests issued decrees as if they were nobles. Religious fraternities had begun to demand stricter rules—pilgrims were forbidden to walk through the streets without long robes and cloaks. Preachers had begun to cry out from street corners, expounding on the actions of loyal worshipers, dedicated pilgrims. People had begun to whisper of witches, of travelers who masqueraded as people of faith only to undermine the true foundation of Brianta.
    Parion could ignore all of that religious claptrap. He had